Canning apparatus have been developed for canning various cooked and uncooked food products such as fish, fowl, meat and vegetables. The food products are typically cut into chunks and deposited in a ring shaped basin or trough that rotates around a center axis. Dispensing sleeves depend from the ring-shaped basin. Containers are carried at a position radially outward from the rotating path of the dispensing sleeves. Receptacles that shuttle back and forth between the dispensing sleeves and containers (and thus are referred to as shuttles) receive a measured quantity of food from the sleeves and transfer and deposit that quantity into the containers. The filled containers are sequentially removed and replaced with unfilled containers and the shuttles move back and forth in a reciprocating manner to provide an endless process of filling the containers.
Such apparatus have heretofore been designed to accommodate containers of a single diameter. Such apparatus and improvements thereto are disclosed in the commonly assigned patents: U.S. Pat. No. 2,602,578, issued July 8, 1952; U.S. Pat No. 3,346,403, issued Oct. 10, 1967; U.S. Pat. No. 4,330,252, issued May 18, 1982; U S. Pat. No. 4,594,066, issued June 10, 1986. If a canning company desired to accommodate different sized containers, an apparatus for each size was required.
The apparatus is complex and expensive and thus canning companies have been limited in their ability to provide canning services as between customers desiring canning in different sized containers.
The concept of simply converting an apparatus to accommodate different sizes of containers is not obviously feasible. The handling of food products requires frequent and thorough cleaning of the areas where the food products contact the apparatus. Thus, replacement parts that require significant time and effort to disassemble and assemble are not acceptable. Attachments of any kind are a problem because the joints unavoidably create creases for the food to become embedded and as such produce cleaning problems.